Design

If you're an architecture addict, look out for the Barbican's latest photography exhibition, Constructing Worlds, which takes you on a journey from 1930s American skyscrapers to contemporary Chinese urbanisation.

Nicholas Culpeper was a 17th century medical maverick whose bestsellers on natural remedies shook up the establishment. Andre Paine profiles the political radical who gathered herbs around Clerkenwell. And on the next page discover Culpeper's herbs in his own words...

He was a financier known for his miserly ways, but George Peabody became a Victorian poverty pioneer. As his first estate reaches its 150th anniversary, Philippa Lewis looks back at the development of social housing in Clerkenwell and Peabody's legacy...

From royalty to wildlife and freak weather to freakier celebrities, Rex Features has reigned supreme over photography for decades. Launched in a front room in north London in 1954, the company has been based in Vine Hill – in a former Ragged school for destitute children – since 1979.

Weird and wonderful design installations have sprung up on the streets of EC1 every May since 2010, as part of Clerkenwell Design Week. What’s in store for the fifth edition in 2014? We look back over the years for inspiration…